The women's squash team showed its resiliency this weekend, bouncing back from a 9-0 loss to Trinity on Friday to win both of its Saturday matches at Wesleyan. The Jumbos defeated Middlebury 5-4 and Hamilton 7-2 to close out the weekend.
Due to injuries, the team was forced to play all three matches with only eight competitors, rather than the standard nine. The last match was forfeited each time.
Despite that obstacle, the team managed to defeat Middlebury in an intense and close match, with two of the best-of-five matches going to four games and another two reaching a deciding fifth game.
"Because we were playing without a ninth [player], each one of us knew our match really counted," senior co-captain Nicole Arens said. "We had to fight down to each point to pull out the match. Overall I think we were the stronger team, and with a ninth girl it probably would have been more decisive."
In the seventh and eighth slots, sophomore Liz Thys and senior Rhonda Barkan provided the key victories for the Jumbos, with each match taking five games to be decided. After beating opponent Ellie Buechner in the first game by a score of 9-3, Thys lost the next two to find herself one game away from elimination. She pulled out the last two games, 9-7 and 9-0, to wrap up the comeback victory.
"It came down to Liz's match, and she played really well," sophomore Erica Adler said. "It was the best that we've played all season."
Barkan faced off against Panther sophomore Kara Zarchin. After going up two games to one, Barkan lost a fourth game tie-breaker 8-10 before winning game five by a score of 9-6.
The other Jumbos to pull out victories were freshman Rebecca Rice (9-3, 9-5, 9-2 over Beth Seeley), Arens (9-0, 9-6, 9-0 over Katie Hawkins), and senior co-captain Eliza Drachman-Jones (9-1, 9-3, 9-3 over Caitlin Flint).
"It was a huge win for us," Adler continued. "It gives us a lot of confidence for the rest of the season."
The team also defeated the Hamilton Continentals 7-2 in its second match. The Jumbos only suffered one loss other than their forfeited ninth spot, and six of the seven wins required only three games.
"We knew we were a better team than them going into it, but we made sure not to be over-confident," Arens said. "We looked to improve our games, and our goal was that every match be as close to 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 as possible."
Hamilton won its other three matches at the tournament, bringing its overall record to 3-4. Tufts' two victories at the tournament boosted its overall record to 5-3.
Both of these wins came on the heels of the Trinity match in which the Jumbos were severely outgunned. A behemoth in the squash world, Trinity is ranked second nationally behind only Yale.
Heading into Friday's match, the players knew that they would be facing a nearly impossible task, and they were correct. The team lost all nine matches to the Bantams as each player was swept in their best-of-five series.
"We came into [the Trinity match] knowing they are No. 2 in the country and really wanted to work on practicing our games, taking it point by point, and learning from them," Arens said.
Nonetheless, the players left the match with an attitude that allowed them to win the close Middlebury contest the next day.
"We came out of it with a very positive attitude," Arens continued. "Each of us were in all of the points, and we left really excited for what we knew would be the closer matches [against Middlebury]."
"We knew Trinity would be tough," Adler added. "But we weren't discouraged, and we used it to warm up for the next matches."
The Jumbos' next challenge will be Amherst, whom they play tomorrow on the road. The Lord Jeffs are ranked just ahead of Tufts nationally, and the match should be close.
The Amherst match should be the last one that the Jumbos must play with only eight women. Juniors Sarah Lucas and Joelle Polivy return from semesters abroad after the break, which will bring the team back to full strength.
